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ОглавлениеCHAPTER 1
Most new or average salespeople have a dream. In the dream, they meet smiling, happy people. They build rapport, qualify, and give a dynamic presentation. At the end of the presentation, the smiling folks can’t wait to own the product. They claps their hands. They whip out their checkbooks or credit cards, sign on the dotted line, and shake hands profusely with the salesperson for showing them the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yep, that’s a dream all right.
Let me give you a short lesson that will take you far in sales. If the people you’re talking with don’t object to anything during your time together, they’re either not listening or not qualified. In other words, they won’t buy!
Objections (concerns) are nothing more than ways for your potential client to slow things down—to keep themselves from making rash decisions—from feeling as if they’re being “sold.” Objections are a common aspect of every sale you’ll attempt to make. Accept this fact and you’ll open your mind to the ways to handle, address, and overcome objections that I’ll cover in this chapter.
Until you learn how to handle objections, you’re not going to approach your potential in sales. Champions have an affection for even the peskiest objection because it’s something concrete. They know they’ve reached the Klondike and are digging for gold when they start hearing objections.
Make the Handling of Objections an Integral and Expected Part of Your Selling Sequence
I hope that you’ll highlight this achievement-oriented statement:
Objections are the rungs of the ladder to sales success.
When you climb to the top of that ladder, they own what you’re selling. There just isn’t any other way to where you want to climb except by grasping and overcoming the most common concerns. If you decide to overcome objections by learning the material in this book, you’ll learn to love objections as much as I do—because they announce buying intention and point the way to closing the sale.
What Is an Objection?
Objections are statements by potential clients that they want to know more. Of course, objections don’t usually come out sounding like a polite request for additional information. People aren’t trying to make it quite that easy for you. They usually are sincerely objecting—they don’t realize they’re just asking for more information. It’s your job to know that, and to know what to do about it.
There are two kinds of objections, minor and major. Please keep this in mind at all times:
Minor objections are defense mechanisms.
People use them to slow things down. They don’t mean that they don’t want to buy; they just want to mull things over before committing themselves. Maybe they need clarification on something. Perhaps they’ve thought of a need they forgot to tell you about. It doesn’t matter the reason. It’s always a good sign when someone gives you a concern. And you don’t necessarily have to address all of them. Trust me. There are people who look at selling situations as opportunities to debate. They’ll toss objections at you all day long if you’ll allow it.
If you sell frequently to couples, you’ll have one of them start to go along with your demonstration and then the other one suddenly starts objecting and fighting you. Sometimes the other spouse, the one who’s going along, is more surprised than you are. The fighting spouse may only want to catch his or her breath, or make sure that you can answer minor objections eloquently before things get any thicker.
Of course, not all concerns should be overcome. You’ll often encounter conditions that prevent the purchase.
Major concerns are things such as: The new SUV doesn’t fit in the garage. Your product doesn’t come in a color that complements the decorating style of the potential client. In other words, your product has limitations that simply don’t fill enough of the needs of the client.
What Is a Condition?
A condition is a valid reason for not going ahead. It’s not an objection to overcome, it’s a total block to the sale that you must accept and walk away from. Champions are quick to recognize conditions. The major aim of qualifying is to determine whether there are any conditions that make the sale impossible and further attempts to sell pointless. So Champions, being expert qualifiers, never destroy their enthusiasm by trying to overcome conditions that can’t be overcome.
One of the most common conditions for large purchases, of course, is that the prospects don’t have the money and can’t qualify for a loan.
Even skilled qualifiers may occasionally be well into their selling sequence and then encounter what appears to be a condition. When this happens, treat it like an objection. That is, try to break it down. If it doesn’t break down, it’s a condition, and you’ll need to develop the ability to swallow hard and then quickly and courteously disconnect from the prospects who, you’ve just discovered, can’t own.
Some of us have a severe challenge here. If we spend time with people and get into our selling sequence with them, we get emotionally involved to the point where we lose our ability to see the difference between an objection that can be overcome and a condition that can’t.
In this, sales is like poker. Professional poker players are quick to throw in a losing hand, no matter how much they’ve already bet on it. Average poker players stay in the game and keep on calling bets with hands they know have little chance to win. Instead of accepting a small loss and getting out, they stay in and take a greater loss.
As Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” Have the wisdom—and sometimes it also takes courage—to pleasantly and quickly withdraw from losing situations.
You’ll appear more professional for doing so and, hopefully, when conditions change in the future for these people, they can become clients of yours. If nothing else, by being extremely professional you will earn the right to ask them for qualified referrals to friends, associates, or relatives who might not have the same conditions. So, all is not lost. It’s just different.
Now let me repeat what an objection is. An objection is a request for more information. Believe me, I won’t waste my time objecting to small things unless I’m really considering taking the product or service—I’m the same as most buyers on that point. But understand this: Potential buyers who object really can’t see how your offering will suit their needs. Your job is to use your superior knowledge of what you’re selling to show them how it can satisfy their needs.
Take a bright highlighting pen and make this point stand out:
If no conditions exist and they don’t buy, it’s my fault.
It’s important to understand and agree with that concept. You represent a fine-quality product, or a service that’s conducted with skill and integrity. When people own it, they benefit. Let them. Do your job. Help those people enjoy the benefits that only you can bring them.
Do you realize how many salespeople won’t let their prospects benefit from their offering? These salespeople won’t do what has to be done in the way of practice, planning, and performance to permit their prospects to benefit from owning what they sell.
I love the profession of selling. It’s been my entire life. I know what a leading part it plays in maintaining our national prosperity and way of life. What I think is sad is the large number of salespeople who damage our profession because they buckle when they hear an objection. These klutzes don’t realize that by failing to overcome objections, they not only fail themselves and their families, but they also fail their companies, the public, and our nation’s future. Prospects came to you in need of the product or service—or you found them in need of it—and if they don’t get it, they lose. Everyone else loses, too.
As I fly around the country, I talk to people who aren’t in the selling profession. When I say that I train salespeople, some of them look at me as if I’m doing something wrong. I don’t accept any shade of that idea. We have the most honorable profession there is. Selling means helping people benefit and grow. Yet average salespeople sit and wait. When they finally meet a prospect, the slightest breeze of objection blows them away— and that prospect walks off without the benefits.
I hope you’ll decide right now that you’ll no longer buckle under and then blow away. Make today the day you take the material in this book (or in my audio and video programs) and start working with all your energy to learn and then shape it to serve your unique requirements. When you’ve made it yours, you’ll love objections like I do because you’ll know in your bones that finding and overcoming them is the only way you’ll ever get the yes you’re looking for. You’ll learn to go in hoping to hear the nos you’ve got to hear before you use your skills and get the yes.
Two Don’ts and One Do That Every Champion Lives By
Here are two things that no Champion ever does, and one thing that all Champions constantly do. Please highlight these three precepts so you can review them quickly and often.
1. Don’t argue. Do you know how many salespeople argue with potential buyers? Prospects voice a concern—meaning that they show a need for more information—and what do they get? An argument. With anger or sarcasm, or other forms of sales-killing heat and pressure, the salesperson tries to beat the prospect down. Quite often, the salesperson succeeds in winning the argument—and thereby loses all chance of making the sale. Why? Because then the only way the prospects can get even for the way they’ve been treated is to buy from someone else.
2. Don’t attack them when you overcome their objections. Put space between your prospects and their objections. By this I mean that you must be careful to separate your people from their objections. You need to be sure that, when you fire at the objection, you don’t hit the potential clients in a vital spot. Develop sensitivity to how your prospects feel when they voice their objections. You can’t reject their objections as being anything less than intelligent and reasonable without striking at their self-esteem. Show concern for saving their face, not determination to prove them wrong.
Never allow a potential client to feel that he’s in danger of being proven wrong. If you start fighting their feelings, their negative emotions will always take over. You can’t make sales by winning logical battles at the cost of losing emotional ones. Objections tell you where their interests lie; this being the case, objections tell you what must be emphasized, eliminated, or changed before they’ll own.
1. Do lead them to answer their own objections. A Champion always tries to help them to answer their own objections.
Here’s another point to highlight: When I say it, they tend to doubt it. When they say it, it’s true.
Anything and everything said by a salesperson is likely to be met with skepticism by potential owners. After all, what you say influences their decision and, unfortunately, due to the lack of professionalism of some in this industry, salespeople’s words aren’t often trusted. So they’ll tend to doubt what you say until and unless you back it up with facts or through hands-on demonstration. When they make a statement, they believe it to be true. People won’t normally tell themselves untruths when in purchasing situations. Your goal is to get them to state the answer to their objection.
The average salesperson doesn’t suspect that this can be done and never tries to do it; the Champion knows that it usually can be done and develops great skill at doing it. Do you know that most prospects will answer their own objections if you’ll just work at it, give them time, and lead them to it? After all, deep down they want to go ahead—if you’ll just show them how, and guide their faltering footsteps. They wouldn’t keep on talking to you if they didn’t want what you sell.
Most buyers have certain reflexes they aren’t even conscious of that come out as objections. When the secretary says, “We only see vendors on Thursday,” or someone coming into a store says, “We’re only looking,” you’re hearing reflex objections. Here’s how to overcome these and other types.
The Objection-Handling System
1. Hear them out. Far too many salespeople leap on an objection before the other person has a chance to finish saying it. The prospect barely gets five words out— and already the salesperson is yammering away as though the evil thing will multiply unless it’s stomped out immediately. I gotta make him wrong quick, or he won’t take the product, seems to be their panicky reaction to the first hint on any objection.
Not only does the prospect feel irritated to be interrupted, but he also feels pushed. And uneasy. “Why’s the salesperson jumping on that so fast and so hard?,” your prospect will ask himself. I smell a rat.”
And suppose you answer the wrong objection? Maybe even raise one he hadn’t thought of? How embarrassing.
2. Feed the objection back. This is one of the best techniques for getting them to answer their own objection. It works especially well with husband-and-wife buyers. I’ve often fed an objection back to the husband, and then sat back while the wife hopped on it and closed him for me. To feed a concern back to potential clients, all you need to do is repeat it back to them with a sincere questioning tone in your voice.
3. Question the concern. Ask them to elaborate on or clarify their concern. Do it seriously. Avoid any hint of sarcasm, impatience, or contempt. If you really get into the detail of their objection, they’ll feel a strong pull toward removing it themselves. Even if that doesn’t happen, while the prospects are expounding further on their objections, you have more time to decide what course will best overcome it. “Mary, you think this table is too large for your dining room? Could you elaborate on that for me?”
4. Answer the objection. You might think, “Well, that lets me out.” Don’t worry—I’m going to show you how. Have you ever stared at the ceiling in the dark of night thinking about all the objections that prospects could hit you with? Sometimes it seems like they have their own training program to learn every negative that can possibly be raised. Some salespeople strike one objection they can’t seem to overcome, and it gives them nightmares. It works on their minds so much that soon they’re expecting to hear the objection they dread most from everyone they meet.
Guess what? Pretty soon that’s the one they always get.
Here’s how it works. That cruncher objection is on their mind when they go in for every meeting, or walk up to every potential client. They don’t know when, or even if, that wipeout objection will strike—but they can’t get it out of their thoughts. So the tension builds until it’s too great. Without realizing it, they start dropping little hints that cause the prospect to bring up the concern they dread most.
Is there a single product or service that doesn’t have a few soft spots, a few places where it isn’t quite as good as something else?
If there is, I’ve never encountered it.
I feel very confident in telling you that throughout your career, everything you sell will have a few features or weaknesses you wish it didn’t have. There’ll always be something that can turn into a cruncher of an objection if you let it prey on your mind.
Champions study the weak points their offering has, and they learn how to handle the situation. They often do this by admitting the disadvantage and immediately comparing it with an advantage. “Yes, our matrix platform adjusts only forty degrees horizontally, but it provides 50 percent more vertical adjustment than any other machine. That’s because our engineering studies prove that… ”
5. Confirm the answer. Don’t reply to the objection and then leave it hanging in the air. They may not have understood you. Or maybe they stopped listening before you finally covered the point because they thought of something else. Always allow for the possibility that people who are close to a decision may get a little strange. After you’ve answered the objection in a way you feel should overcome it, confirm that you have. Ask things like:
“That clarifies this point, don’t you agree?”
“That’s the answer you’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“With that question out of the way, we can go ahead, don’t you think?”
“Do you agree with me that we’ve covered the question you raised, and given you a way to handle it?”
“Now that settles that, doesn’t it?”
6. Change gears, and immediately go to the next step in your selling sequence or on to the next objection or concern they raise. You may end up repeating these six steps two or three times if you’re working with someone who likes to object. Once you’re good at this job, you’ll eliminate many objections in advance with your qualification sequence and preplanned presentations—designed to do just that.
Once you’ve confirmed that you’ve overcome an objection, move on briskly.
To signal that the last step is over, and that you’re all now going on to the next step, use body language as you speak. That is, make an appropriate gesture, look or step in a new direction, turn the page of your proposal, shift in your chair—make some physical move. As you do that, introduce the next step with a phrase such as, “By the way…”
Let’s review the six steps to handling objections: (1) Hear it out, (2) feed it back, (3) question it, (4) answer it, (5) confirm that the answer was accepted, and (6) move on with a gesture and a “By the way.”
Make this your standard method for addressing every concern. Learn this material and it’ll be better for your energy than any sleeping pills you can buy—no prescription, all the side effects are wonderful, and you’ll sleep soundly because you won’t fear what bedevils the nights of the average salesperson.
That’s the method. Now here are four techniques to break through specific barriers. Incorporate them into your arsenal of objection-busting weapons by writing questions and answers that fit your own situation.
Four Shock Treatments for Concerns
1. Put the shoe on the prospect’s foot. Use this technique to overcome a direct challenge arising from the prospect’s previous experience with your company. Here’s how it works. For our example, let’s assume that you represent the Dimm Company that markets a high-quality line of office copiers. You’ve just walked in to see Jack Rinehart, a referral from your swap meet. Right away you run into trouble when Mr. Rinehart says, “We had a Dimm Copier two years ago and we had to get rid of it. Too slow. We lost a lot of valuable employee time with your machine.”
In this situation, the average salesperson often gets into an argument about whether the Dimm Copier is now as fast as the competition. Such arguments rarely go well. Mr. Rinehart soon says, “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t want another Dimm around here. Thanks for coming in. Good-bye.”
The Champion puts the shoe on the prospect’s foot by saying, “Mr. Rinehart, would you for a moment pretend that you’re the president of Dimm Copiers, and you’ve just found out about the challenge we had with the reproduction speed of our copiers. What would you do?”
Mr. Rinehart will say something like, “I’d get my engineering department cracking on it, and make them solve the problem in a hurry.” By putting him in the shoes of your company’s president, you’ve asked him a question with an obvious answer that strokes his ego, haven’t you?
Then you warmly smile and say, “That’s exactly what Dimm Copiers did.” What can Mr. Rinehart do now but listen to the rest of your presentation?
A common experience in sales, especially when starting a new job, is to take over an established territory. Let’s suppose you’re doing that.
It doesn’t take you long to find out that the person you replaced wasn’t promoted for doing a great job. In fact, the opposite happened—your predecessor tore the territory down. Now you’re picking up the pieces.
As you get around your new area to meet clients, you start running across a lot of unhappy people. Most of them are now buying your product or service from the competition. When you go in to introduce yourself and say that you’re going to be servicing their company from now on, they tell you something like this:
“Listen, we aren’t going to do business with your company anymore. That last guy was a real loser. Made all kinds of promises he couldn’t deliver on, and then he’d never call us back. I’ve had it. Any company that would put a man like him on the road for them is off our list.”
Smile and say, “Sir, please forgive me for what happened in the past before I joined the company.”
“Nothing personal, but we’ve had enough.”
“I understand what you’re saying. But may I ask you to pretend something with me for just a moment? If you were the president of our company and it came to your attention that one of your salespeople was giving your clients the kind of service he gave you, what would you do?”
“I’d fire him.”
Then you smile again and say, “That’s what we did—and here I am to provide you with the level of service you should expect from our company.”
But what if the last representative is now your manager, your boss, or is still with the company in some other capacity?
You smile and say, “… If you were the president of our company, and it came to your attention that one of your salespeople was terrible at follow-up even on very important business, but you also knew that this person had some great talents in areas where you badly needed help, how would you handle it?”
You’re practically spelling out the answer for him, aren’t you?
So he’s going to give you a response along these lines: “Well, if he really had talents I needed, I suppose I’d try to put those talents to work where we could keep an eye on him.”
Whatever your prospects say about the person in question, you reply, “That’s probably what we did.” Don’t get into a long explanation. Stop the discussion of the old disasters right there and go with your presentation about the new and exciting things your company now has to offer.
2. Change their base. Ask a question that highlights major benefits while it dwarfs minor objections.
Here’s an example from real estate sales: You’ve shown the entire home, and they like it. But as you’re walking with them down the hall after seeing the three bedrooms in the house, the husband suddenly starts fighting you.
“That last bedroom is too small,” he says.
As you feed it back, intensify it to see whether it’s more like a condition than an objection. “The third bedroom is too small? How did you plan to use it?”
“It would probably be the guest room. But it’s sure small.”
If the wife doesn’t jump in and overcome the objection for you, change his base. “Tell me, Mr. Bjornstad—and this is an important question, sir, because your answer can eliminate this house from consideration—what will you base your decision on, the warmth and livability of the entire home, or a few inches in the guest room?”
Of course, he’s going to pick the warmth and livability of the entire home. If he doesn’t, you’d better forget that house and find one they will own.
You’re with a prospect who is considering your medical insurance. She says, “Mr. Hopkins, one of my major concerns is that I’d really like to have the insurance company pay the doctor and hospital direct and save me all that hassle.”
Your company doesn’t handle things that way. So you ask in a cordial way, “Mrs. Wimmer, what will you base your decisions on—the method of payment or the quality of coverage for you and your family?”
She’ll say, “The quality of coverage.”
Then you eliminate the objection by saying, “Let’s discuss the quality of the coverage for your family first, shall we?”
3. Question down. People walk into your retail store and settle by one of your entertainment systems. When they ask questions, you give your demonstration and learn two things. They are Mr. and Mrs. Tellgren, and they want that system. You go through a few closes with no success, and then Mr. Tellgren says, “Thanks for your time. We’ll think about it and let you know.”
What does “I’ll let you know” really mean in cases like this?
It means, “Now that I’ve found what I want, I’m going to shop around and see if I can buy it any cheaper.”
Remember the rule. Always lead them toward answering their own objections.
“We’ll look around and get back to you.”
“Fine. That’s a wise decision. Mr. Tellgren, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions before you go. Were you impressed with the quality of the sound on this model?”
“Oh yes.”
“Is the cabinet the size you’re looking for?”
“Well, yeah, it’s about right.”
“And I think you mentioned that you wanted adequate controls, but not something too elaborate. Does that model fit your needs on this?”
I gently list all the things they were pleased with. As I do this, I work in—very briefly—all the positive things I can: “We service everything we sell, we have free delivery and installation, we offer liberal credit terms,” whatever. In a few cases, you’ll be able to close them by striking a responsive chord with some of the services that you can offer. If not, you’ll be able to get down to the final objection which, nine times out of ten, is money. When you get them to agree that the reason they won’t buy right now is money, you’ve isolated your challenge. The techniques for coping with this problem are given in chapter 4 of book 4, Your Sales Presentation and chapter 2 of book 5, 16 Power Closes.
3. Review their history. This technique is especially effective if your product or service is something that’s purchased on a regular basis by organizations. You might be selling industrial raw materials, processing services, supply items, generic merchandise. The buying of these products and services often becomes a matter of habit: It’s easier to keep on buying the same thing from the same source than it is to cope with change. Many suppliers don’t really keep on their toes with their established accounts. Usually they put more value on acquiring new accounts than on keeping old ones, even though the cost of acquiring new accounts almost always far exceeds the cost of keeping old ones. And of course, many successful suppliers become overly satisfied with their positions and get careless. When they stop bringing fresh ideas to their established accounts and stop keeping in close personal touch, a gap starts opening up between the best and what they’re giving. This means that the supplier isn’t helping the customer keep up with change anymore. The customer is falling behind and losing profits. The wider the gap grows, the more likely it becomes that someone in the competition will discover it, charge in through that gap, and capture the customer’s business.
If you have established accounts, keep in close personal touch with them, make sure you keep them posted on all new developments in your industry, and stay alert to their best interests. If you’re on the prowl to take over some of the competition’s accounts, here’s an effective way to continue when you hit their resistance to change.
You’re selling service, FM radio advertising spots to be exact. Your station is K-WHEE. Red Eye Soap, a major radio advertiser in your market, plays all its spots on K-TOO, a competing station. You’re going for the business in a meeting with Jane Mota, Red Eye’s advertising manager. (With many products and services, you’d have to ask what they’re using now. In this case, you know because you listen to the competitive stations to see who’s advertising on them.)
“Are you satisfied with K-TOO, Mrs. Mota?”
“Oh yes. They do a wonderful job for us.”
She wants to discourage you so you’ll be easier to get rid of.
But you have a plan and press on.
“How long have you been using K-TOO?”
“About three years.”
“And before K-TOO, did your firm do any radio advertising?”
“Red Eye started on K-ONE in the late 1990s, I understand.”
“May I ask how long you’ve been Red Eye’s advertising manager, Mrs. Mota?”
“I’ve been here five years.”
“Then I’d probably be safe in thinking that you had a great deal to do with the switch from K-ONE to K-TOO.”
“Yes, you would.”
“And you recommended, or made, that switch based on quite a bit of research and analysis, didn’t you?”
“Yes, on a tremendous amount of research. We made a detailed market analysis of ten stations. Our studies convinced us that our FM budget would influence more potential buyers on K-TOO than on any other station.”
“You were looking for sales potential when you did your study three years ago, weren’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“And the results have lived up to your expectations?”
“Yes, they have. We’re very satisfied.”
“Tell me, since you received greater performance by considering, and then making, a change three years ago, why should you deny yourself the opportunity to repeat the process? Your research back then led to greater profits for Red Eye and greater professional prestige for you personally. You did it once, so the possibility must exist that you can do it again, don’t you agree?”
